As a Moments subpage, all spoilers are unmarked as per policy. You Have Been Warned.
The Series
- Entry #26: Alex's response to being the closest he's ever been to The Operator for a long while (At least, as close as he's been while awake?) Calmly give his girlfriend strict instructions on getting out of the house, and reassuring her that he'll be there in a sec, implying that he's about to try to settle the score. Considering that, until his girlfriend got involved, his strategy for dealing with it was "run far away, and hope it doesn't notice I changed addresses," this can also count as a CMOH. And you know what? He makes it.
- Slightly nullified when you remember what Alex has done up to this point.
- Entry #33: When Jay sets the camera down to dig through the safe, we catch a glimpse of Masky apparently sneaking up from behind; when Jay finally notices, how does he greet his old foe? With a Mag-Lite to the temple. (It apparently didn't deter Masky for long though, as it didn't even knock the facade off. Which implies Masky's got some really superhuman durability there).
- Entry #35: Jay and Alex are ambushed by the Masked Man. They fight him off, pin him on the ground, tie him up and unmask him (to find out that it's Tim).
- And that's not even getting into how they punish him. The use of a flashlight suddenly pales compared to Alex breaking his leg with a chunk of cement.
- Up until late in Season 2, Alex was the walking embodiment of this page. He's really the only character that gets anything done.
- Entry #47: Jay standing up for himself against Alex. Considering that Jay is, according to Word of God, a rather introverted guy, and that he's normally pretty submissive to Alex... well, Jay refusing to take crap for once was a good step for him.
- Not to mention the nice little moment when Jay looks away for a while, thinking, and then turns around and runs back over to Alex just to grab the guy's car keys, run back to his own car, and lock Alex's keys inside of it. Just to get Jessica's phone number from Alex. It works. He even checks to make sure the phone number actually belongs to Jessica. Good show, Jay.
- Entry #50: Jay bluffs Alex into thinking he didn't steal Alex's spare key (or at least gets him to back off for the moment, itself quite an accomplishment at this point), then successfully retrieves a tape from inside and makes sure to give the label a closeup shot just in case his memory is erased.
- Entry #51: Brian, during the filming of the student film, runs afoul of the Operator. Rather than running for the hills like any usual person would have done, he sticks around the creepy abandoned building to try and find his missing friend Alex. Unfortunately, this is a case of Honor Before Reason and he gets Put on a Bus to Hell as a result, but points for courage in the face of true terror, man.
- Entry #52: Finally seeing the Operator face to faceless head, Jay screams, "What do you want?! Leave us alone!" and runs to tackle it head-on. Granted, he fails and suffers seven months of Laser-Guided Amnesia, but DAMN.
- Also YMMV on whether this is the case but the Operator seems to physically recoil when Jay charges it, and in the few seconds afterwards, the camera POV suggests Jay is physically wrestling with the Operator, which would officially make Jay one of the most badass characters in the entire Slender Man Mythos.
- Look at it this way: Zeke and Noah tried guns. Evan tried a baseball bat, and later on the group tried a car. Jay? BARE HANDS.
- Depending on his intentions and what side he's really on, Masky attacking Alex before the latter can shoot Jay may count as this.
- Entry #59: Tim's epic What the Hell, Hero? speech to Jay, furiously calling him out on making Tim's condition worse by showing up and pointlessly filming everything.
- When Jay gets out of his car as Tim pulls up, the first thing Tim does is storm out of his car and punch Jay in the face mid-sentence and start screaming at him.
- Entry #60: Jay manages to outrun the Operator in a cramped and confined space while left completely in the dark.
- Fridge Brilliance: the Operator would've been even more cramped and confined.
- Fridge Horror: the Operator isn't bound by the laws of physics as we know them, so he was being deliberately slow to torment Jay even more.
- Fridge Brilliance: the Operator would've been even more cramped and confined.
- Entry #63 has a mildly understated one with Jay and Tim finally stopping their bickering (mostly) and teaming up to try and figure out what has been happening, as well as Tim agreeing to help Jay find Jessica.
- Also in #63, Tim proves in 2 minutes that he has more sense than Jay has shown in the entire series by not going back to Rosswood alone, insisting that dealing with the Operator be the first priority rather than Jessica (who has been missing with no trace for 18 months), and by insisting that he and Jay work together, since working alone they are more vulnerable.
- Entry #64 has Tim on the ground in the midst of a coughing spasm as The Operator approaches. Jay's first instinct is to grab Tim's hand and try to drag him away, even as the Operator keeps getting closer. It isn't until Tim tells Jay "RUN!" (with the Operator only a few feet away at that point) that Jay finally leaves Tim and runs away. Equal props must be given to Jay, for not panicking and running as soon as the Operator showed up, and to Tim, who insisted that Jay leave him and save himself.
- Entry #65: After one of the most horrendous Mind Rapes in the history of the Mythos, Tim is still determined to carry on, insisting that he and Jay explore the hospital one more time.
- In Entry #67, Hoody gets one when he sneaks up on Alex and brains him with a pipe, similarly to how Alex had done the same to Tim. He then ties him up, sics an enraged and (presumably) Masky-invoked Tim on Alex to commit some well-earned Extreme Mêlée Revenge before taking Alex's gun and pointing it right at his face.
- Hell, that would've been the end of Alex had the Operator not decided to pay a visit and force Hoody to retreat.
- Hell, Alex gets one too in this. How many people can give a Death Glare that potent after having received a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown and then find themselves staring up the barrel of their own gun? Defiant to the End much?
- In Entry #68, Alex finds Hoody unmasked, but according to Alex, Hoody merely smiles smugly at him. Then he runs from Alex, posting in the video that despite Alex's threats, he will not find him and he is not afraid of him.
- It should be noted that Alex managed to track down Hoody on his own. Which is better than Jay's managed to do in all this time.
- This also reveals Hoody's sparse living conditions (an abandoned building with an old mattress to sleep on and a bottle of water for when he has a spare moment). Remember that this is The Chessmaster of the second and third seasons, the guy who's been pushing most of the characters in the directions he wants them to go with little more than some weird Youtube videos and the occasional onscreen appearance, and it doesn't even seem like his residence would have internet or even electricity. This guy has so little to work with and yet he's survived and thrived.
- In Entry #72, Tim and Jay get chased out of Alex's house by the Operator, but when Jay gets left behind, Tim goes back to look for him, and winds up finding Jay with the Operator standing a few yards away. Tim boldly stands up to the Operator, despite clearly suffering from its influence, and even manages to shake off the attack with relative clear-mindedness after the Operator takes its leave. In fact, the way Tim's arm is twitching when standing up to The Operator seems to indicate that he was attempting to take a swing at him.
- As one Tumblr fan put it, "Tim just literally faced his childhood fear. And he won."
- Prior to this, while Tim is frantically looking for Jay, he's nearly incapacitated with a very familiar, very severe coughing fit; in spite of his obviously panicked state, he still has the presence of mind to stop and take a dose of pills, preventing him from reverting back to his Masky persona and allowing him to continue looking for Jay (not to mention potentially saving his life moments later when he literally comes face-to-(lack of) face with the Operator). Good boy, Tim.
- In Entry #76, although it only delayed her death marginally, Jessica tackling and disarming Alex when he holds her at gunpoint was pretty damn awesome. Even more so that she threatens him with it much like Hoody did. Speaking of Hoody, he takes the opportunity to come out of hiding and tackle Alex to the ground and try to strangle him, giving Jessica the chance to escape. Although she failed in the end, she at least went down fighting.
- If you look closely at the scenario, you realize that Hoody came from the side of the tunnel that the Operator always seems to appear from, meaning he was waiting in the heart of the enemy's lair when he struck.
- Also possibly contains a Shout-Out to Slender the Arrival (written by the same people as Marble Hornets), where one level has you blinding a Proxy with a flashlight to stun them, which is how Jessica was able to charge Alex.
- In Entry #83, Tim collapses in a coughing fit and is approached by Hoody, who gives him his Masky mask. Tim resists the change through sheer force of will and chases Hoody on a whirlwind tour of most of the locations from the third season, before finally dropping Hoody from a high ledge, seemingly killing his opponent and regaining his medication, along with a new tape.
- Entry #84: Tim calling Alex out for a fight. And it's clear that he intends to end this once and for all, no matter the cost.
- Annnnnnd Subverted in Entry #85: Tim just hides and films him. Like he's been doing the whole series. Annnnnd Double Subverted as Tim realizes near the end that he needs to find Alex after he burns his house down.
- Well, to be fair, Tim saw that he had a gun.
- Which Tim knew when he called him out. Maybe it's a case of Didn't Think This Through.
- Annnnnnd Subverted in Entry #85: Tim just hides and films him. Like he's been doing the whole series. Annnnnd Double Subverted as Tim realizes near the end that he needs to find Alex after he burns his house down.
- Entry #86 more than makes up for it though. Finally giving us the epic Tim VS Alex throwdown! Some highlights include:
- Despite Alex being the Operator's puppet to the point where he can teleport at will, most of the teleports end up favoring Tim anyway.
- The first major teleport takes Alex and Tim to the Rosswood tunnel at night. Alex goes from having a clear, easy shot at Tim to firing wildly in the pitch black night.
- Tim takes the opportunity to sneak up and stab Alex right in the back and take his gun..... which is now out of ammo. Alex takes the knife out, giving him the advantage, but Tim is able to block Alex and get the knife back.
- Alex lists off all the people he's killed thus far and begins to strangle Tim. Tim whips out the knife to stab Alex in the side of the neck and says that he missed someone. Folks, we have a knockout!
